


Dogged Days

by Salmon_Pink



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-19
Updated: 2012-02-19
Packaged: 2017-10-31 11:04:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmon_Pink/pseuds/Salmon_Pink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick just has to hold on, has to do this right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dogged Days

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Under The Hood but before Batman Reborn. Written for [60 Minute Fics](http://60-minute-fics.livejournal.com/), prompt "villains".

It’s a bad night. 

Dick knows that as soon as he slides over the windowsill into Jason’s deceptively crappy-looking apartment. 

He’s gotten good at reading the silence in the room, the stillness.

He freezes there, legs bent low, readying himself. Waits, because he knows it’s coming, only a matter of time.

Jason dissolves out of the shadows to Dick’s right. Slow, lazy movements, but he’s still dangerous as a predator closing in on its prey.

Dick braces himself.

Jason’s weight slams into him hard, and then the wall feels like it hits even harder. It sends a jolt through his spine, the back of his head smacking against the plaster. One of Jason’s hands wraps around Dick’s bicep, his body pinning Dick to the wall. The other grips Dick’s chin, pushes at it, tilts Dick’s head back as he bears down on him, and the kiss _hurts_. Teeth in his bottom lip, and then Jason’s tongue pushing inside, _claiming_ him, and Dick groans and sucks at the tongue that moves over his own.

When Jason pulls back, his eyes are distant yet bright, glittering with something deadly, something that makes Dick have to fight to keep his own muscles from tensing. 

Bad nights mean Dick having to push past his fight-or-flight reflex.

“Why are you here, Dick?” Jason snarls, and on the bad nights Jason drops the nicknames and the insults, instead spits Dick’s name like a curse. “Why do you keep coming back?”

Dick wants to answer, but he _can’t_. He knows from experience that he’d only make things worse, that Jason would hit him, make him bleed, throw him out the window, or maybe through it. And Dick wouldn’t even care, Jason’s done worse to him before. 

But then Jason would avoid him, and Dick can’t allow that. Jason would go underground, and Dick would be left going crazy, and it would all be because Dick couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

Dick’s always used banter to keep himself sharp, to talk his way out of tricky situations, to break the uncomfortable silences. But for this, for the bad nights, he’s learnt to keep quiet and take whatever Jason gives him.

Right now it’s this, Jason sliding his hand over Dick’s chin until he can push his thumb between Dick’s lips. Dick begins to suck on it almost instinctively, eyelids fluttering but never closing, and Jason’s eyes spark like two shards of flint clashing.

“Does Daddy know you’re here?” Jason sounds so angry, so disgusted, and Dick can’t tell who all that hate is meant for, him or Bruce or Jason himself. “Does he know you’re here with me, begging for it like a fucking _whore_?”

That makes Dick’s eyes close, not out of shame but because he knows everything he wants to say will be written there in his eyes, and that would be just as bad as letting the words out, just as bad as trying to talk. 

So he keeps his eyes closed, licking at Jason’s thumb, sweeping his tongue over the edge of the nail and nibbling and sucking and listening to the sound of Jason’s ragged breath. Keeps his eyes closed, even when Jason drags the thumb out over his lips, smears it across his cheek, up over the curve of an eyebrow, across a closed eyelid, leaving a damp trail over Dick’s face.

He gasps at the hand in his hair, the firm and cruel grip, the way it pulls him forward just to slam him back against the wall, but still he keeps his eyes closed, keeps his words to himself.

The next kiss is sudden and quick and brutal, and Dick’s lips are already swollen for the touch. He feels Jason’s gaze, feels the way Jason seems to stare right through him, but still he keeps his eyes closed.

Until Jason hisses, “Tell me.” Another kiss, placed to the corner of his mouth, as sharp as a blow. “Tell me you want it.”

And that’s the permission Dick needs, that’s _all_ the permission Dick needs. Eyes opening, hands touching everywhere he can reach. Pressing his face to Jason’s, lips restless against Jason’s cheek, tasting the skin and the way the Gotham air clings to it as he whispers, “Want you, please, Jay, I’m here for _you_ , I want _you_.”

Jason shoves a hand between them, pushes down and squeezes between Dick’s legs, hard enough for Dick to feel it through the jock. And Dick could take that, has done before, back before he really understood the bad nights and what they meant. Could let Jason peel him out of the Nightwing uniform, push him down on the bed, could scratch at the sheets and spread for it as Jason breaks him apart with pleasure, makes him moan and beg and _scream_.

And then it would be over, and Jason would be pulling away, refusing to let Dick touch him back, eyes shuttered, closed, _withdrawn_.

That’s not what Dick wants.

Instead, he pushes up against Jason, won’t let there be any space between them. Hands in Jason’s hair as he kisses him, as deep as he can, as _real_ as he can, hips rolling against Jason’s palm, pushing the back of Jason’s hand against his own crotch. _Sharing_ the feeling, because this isn’t just about Dick, even if Jason thinks that pretending it is will make it easier for them both.

And there’s always that moment, here on the bad nights, when Dick thinks he’s pushed too far. That Jason will turn, will reject him, will call an end to it all, and Dick buries his panic in a kiss that’s dizzying and leaves him breathless and outside of himself.

And then Jason’s surging forward, and Dick can breathe again. Because Jason’s not trying to hurt him, not anymore. He’s pushing into him, leaning on him, trying to touch him everywhere, and Dick swallows down every hoarse, wrecked noise that escapes Jason’s lips. Touching each other every place they can reach, and if Jason’s fingers leave bruises, it’s only because they’re so desperate, so frantic for more.

The bad nights still scare him. There are so many ways Dick could screw up, could ruin everything forever, and sometimes it feels like that pressure could just _drown_ him, could tear him to shreds.

But the bad nights _mean_ something. It means something that it never used to be this way, that Jason was always in control, always ready to tease and laugh and drive Dick crazy, just for the fun of it. 

The bad nights are when Jason can’t pretend anymore, when he can’t hide anymore.

The bad nights are when Jason is exposed and honest and _raw_.

And he’s letting Dick _see_ that, letting him in, bit by bit. 

And once that danger has passed, once Dick has followed Jason’s rules, has passed the test or just ridden out the storm, then every kiss is sincere, every touch earnest, entangled together, clutching and gasping and lost in each other in a way Jason usually never allows. And Dick will be allowed to stay, allowed to curl up against Jason’s side until his breathing evens out, until Dick can watch him sleep.

The bad nights still scare him, but Dick is determined that he’ll be there through them all, that he’ll keep learning, that he’ll be everything Jason needs him to be and more.

Because Dick has already vowed that he’s going to stay by Jason’s side, through the good and the bad, until his brother is ready to come back to the nest.


End file.
